PROVO — BYU head football coach Bronco Mendenhall often makes the point with his recruiting that he doesn’t care a whit about star rankings, national and local evaluations from the media, or even the amount or quality of offers assigned to high school and junior college prospects. As if to drive that point home, he assembled the 2013 signing class.

BYU has 29 players committed to sign this February with two players (Trent Trammell and Billy Green) already signed and enrolled. The majority of prospects pledged were wrapped up over the summer and before they could capture notice from other programs.

The current recruiting class includes no four- or five-star recruits and just nine three-star recruits as evaluated by scout.com and eight as evaluated by rivals.com. It’s a stat that Mendenhall couldn’t care less about and will likely express as much when the class is announced Feb. 6.

So how should fans regard this year’s class that includes so little hype and national attention?

It’s always hard to know exactly how a recruiting class will shape up at any program, but that is especially true at BYU given its relatively small recruiting pool. Given the program’s stringent academic and Honor Code standards, Mendenhall and his staff must be very selective in who they recruit and sign. For this reason the BYU coaching staff holds on to its own evaluations and consider little else when deciding whom to offer scholarships.

It’s a process that has worked well for Mendenhall since arriving at BYU. His recruits have provided winning seasons, bowl wins and, most importantly, have largely avoided running afoul with the Honor Code while representing the program and its unique mission well.

When reviewing the class of 2013 there is little doubt that these players will work to continue BYU’s tradition of winning seasons while also representing the program well off the field. The question is if these are the type of players who will help BYU reach the next level of BCS bowls and even a national championship, which are the stated goals of the program. That question is certainly tougher to answer and easier to cast doubt upon given its lack of highly-ranked prospects.

So who does BYU have committed and what’s in store for recruiting from now until national letter of intent day on Feb. 6? We break it down position-by-position to give fans the best overview of the 2013 class.

Popular Comments

Before anyone goes off on an irrelevant tangent, remember that these recruits
are teenage men who have never played a down of college football in their lives.
Any attempts to judge their future collegiate ability through a 5 star rating
system is
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2:10 p.m. Jan. 10, 2013

Top comment

BrettJones

Houston, TX

Please, please, please sign a kicker!

1:55 p.m. Jan. 10, 2013

Top comment

Todd Christiansen's Thesaurus

Ogden, UT

Looking forward to next season, hope its a great one. Personally, I get more
excited about "diamonds in the rough" than a four or five start recruit;
I've seen at least two examples of high profile recruits (*****) at BYU
amount to
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Brandon Gurney covers recruiting, high school sports, and BYU athletics for the Deseret News. Previously, he worked with scout.com for eight years, covering BYU, with an emphasis on recruit coverage. He joined the Deseret more ..